BigTuna wrote: It's over for the Canucks. There's no "Minor Re-tooling". They are old and need to rebuild. The Leafs will make the playoffs. The Canucks will not.

Leafs=Young And improving.

Canucks=Old and window has closed.

I'm not sure if it's a "lock" that the Canucks will miss the playoffs, but I agree with BigTuna that our core is finished, and that at this point, we need to start preparing for the future.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers, and a few other teams, have had the least amount of overall success in the NHL for the past decade. In the Oilers case, it's due to having too many young 'green' guys and not enough leadership.

In Toronto's case however, the reason why they were Canada's embarrassment from 2003-2013, was due to the fact that their management stayed too loyal to a core that was finished. They depleted their farm trying to 'add pieces' to their stale core, and lost out on both ends. The Flames made the same mistake in 2009, and will very likely match or exceed Toronto's embarrassment in a few years. (Although in Calgary's defense, if and when they do make the playoffs, I don't think it's likely we'll see such a horrible choke job from them as we saw with Leafs/Bruins in Game 7 last year).

My idea is this: We should keep the twins, Burrows, Garrison, and Hamhuis, but try and move all other guys that are over the age of 26.

Twins can provide leadership to the next core, while Burrows can help the twins anchor that first line (I'm of the opinion that Burrows is pretty much immovable, and so we'll have to hold onto him.......even with age, I think the twins and Burrows will be a decent scoring line when healthy).

Garrison and Hamhuis are loyal BC boys, and will provide some veteran leadership and stability to our defensive core.

Canucks should be set in net with Lack in the future.

Kesler, Bieksa, Edler, etc.,

Move them and get younger.

Don't stay loyal to a stale core like the Flames and Leafs did, but don't go too extreme to the point where every single guy is in their early 20's either (like Edmonton).

Find a good balance of youth and experience, and I don't think the Canucks' rebuild should take too long.

Horvat will be as good as Kesler one day in my opinion. Tanev and Corrado should become solid 2nd pairing defensemen.

The Brown Knight wrote:Horvat will be as good as Kesler one day in my opinion.

Perhaps. I'm of the opinion that Horvat will be better served on our 4th then 3rd line working w/ Kesler as a mentor to fill those shoes (like Linden did w/ Kesler previously). Be patient w/ Horvat and let him grow in the right conditions. Guance is another who may eventually vie for that 3rd center position as well. They could be a good 2-3 punch up the middle.

The Brown Knight wrote:Horvat will be as good as Kesler one day in my opinion.

Perhaps. I'm of the opinion that Horvat will be better served on our 4th then 3rd line working w/ Kesler as a mentor to fill those shoes (like Linden did w/ Kesler previously). Be patient w/ Horvat and let him grow in the right conditions. Guance is another who may eventually vie for that 3rd center position as well. They could be a good 2-3 punch up the middle.

I completely agree that Kesler would be a great mentor for Horvat.

Unfortunately however, I think the Canucks' best bargaining chip as far as trades go is Ryan Kesler, and Gillis should be looking to move him while he's at his peak in value. As a 29 year old center that is one of the top players on Team USA, I think it would be in Gillis' best interests to make a significant deal of sorts involving Kesler. Make a similar deal with Kesler as to what the Flyers did with Mike Richards a few years back.

As far as mentorship goes, Henrik and Daniel can help mentor Horvat from an offense side of things. Defensively, you can always get a plug like Brad Richardson to help mentor Horvat and Gaunce.

It may not be an idealistic scenario, but I think we really need to start shopping Kesler at the trade deadline.

My line of thought is this however: Kadri and Gardiner's value right now isn't all that high, but we all know of their upside. Canucks get a potentially very good second line calibre center, and a possible top pairing calibre defenseman.

That however - is the MINIMUM we could get from the Leafs.

Since the Leafs do tend to over-estimate their worth, they probably see themselves as being the clear-cut 3rd best team in the Eastern Conference, only very slightly behind Pitsburgh and Boston. In reality however - they are significantly inferior to both Pitsburgh and Boston, and are probably a little below both Montreal and Tampa in terms of overall level.

However - why not use that to our advantage?

Dangle Kesler for the Leafs to pick up, and let the Leafs over-pay for Kesler (since they probably do see themselves as being 1-2 pieces away from being as good as Pens/Bruins, and from making a legit cup run).

Kadri, Gardiner, and more could come back our way.

Last edited by The Brown Knight on Sun Feb 16, 2014 2:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Linden was over the hill and of little value when he supposedly mentored Kesler. It took less than a season for Kesler surpass Trev on the depth chart. I advocated using the one allowable buyout post '04 lockout on Trev.

Topper wrote:Linden was over the hill and of little value when he supposedly mentored Kesler. It took less than a season for Kesler surpass Trev on the depth chart. I advocated using the one allowable buyout post '04 lockout on Trev.

Agreed.

I try not to mention Linden too much on here since it's a bit of a touchy subject, but I'd even go as far as saying that Linden was a shell of himself after his knee surgery in 1996.........and that as much as we all dislike Mike Keenan for shitting on Linden, everything he said about Linden was true at that point.

Linden was a shell after 1996, and was a shell of a shell after the lock-out.

That's not to say however, that he wasn't a tremendous leader and positive influence in the locker-room.

As far as mentorship goes, I'd argue that Mats Sundin actually had more of an impact on Kesler than anyone else.

My line of thought is this however: Kadri and Gardiner's value right now isn't all that high, but we all know of their upside. Canucks get a potentially very good second line calibre center, and a possible top pairing calibre defenseman.

That however - is the MINIMUM we could get from the Leafs.

Since the Leafs do tend to over-estimate their worth, they probably see themselves as being the clear-cut 3rd best team in the Eastern Conference, only very slightly behind Pitsburgh and Boston. In reality however - they are significantly inferior to both Pitsburgh and Boston, and are probably a little below both Montreal and Tampa in terms of overall level.

However - why not use that to our advantage?

Dangle Kesler for the Leafs to pick up, and let the Leafs over-pay for Kesler (since they probably do see themselves as being 1-2 pieces away from being as good as Pens/Bruins, and from making a legit cup run).

Kadri, Gardiner, and more could come back our way.

Kadri has more points than any Canadian post Olympic announcement, so his value has gone back up qiute a bit.

BigTuna wrote: It's over for the Canucks. There's no "Minor Re-tooling". They are old and need to rebuild. The Leafs will make the playoffs. The Canucks will not.

Leafs=Young And improving.

Canucks=Old and window has closed.

It's over because of a bad stretch of play where they have been mangled by injuries. What a dumb thing to say.....it seems kinda like when your Leafs went through a shitty stretch and we didn't see you for a month.

Vancouver does need to do a mini rebuild for sure. Not a complete overhaul but they do have to touch a couple of core pieces between now and October. They are not in as dire of a situation as Toronto was or Calgary or Edmonton as they have a lot more depth and talent than any of those teams did when they went into their downward spirals.

I just hope Eye Bags is the right guy to give this team a facelift.

Dont be bumping your gums too much Starkist as a lot can change in a year....hell even in a month. You used to come on here and on central for the better part of a decade telling us every year that the Leafs were the real deal in November. They have made the playoffs exactly once in that time.

I do think this Canuck core is finished, but outside of that, I pretty much agree with Blob from above.

BigTuna,

Like I said earlier - the Leafs do seem to have a promising and youthful core, but it's best not to get too ahead of yourself, and come on here with an air or arrogance.

Lest we forget - the Leafs missing the playoffs for 10 seasons straight and being the LAST team from the Post 2005 lock-out to qualify for the playoffs. When the Leafs finally did qualify for the playoffs, this "promising" core that you talk about completed one of the biggest choke jobs not only in hockey history.........but in sporting history.

The humble approach is always better than the arrogant approach.

This aging Canuck core that you seem to be talking down to, achieved almost everything under the sun other than a Stanley Cup win.......and they came within one game of doing so. Back-to-Back Presidents trophies, a Western Conference Championship, numerous divisional titles, multiple Art Ross Trophy winners, A Selke Trophy winner, A Jack Adams winner, Jennings trophy winners, and a Vezina finalist.

All of these accomplishments are greater than those achieved by Toronto's core consisting of Sundin, Gilmour, Clark, Tucker, etc., etc. In fact, that core's greatest accomplishment outside of 2002, was their Conference final run in 1994 where they were defeated by the Canucks in 5 games.

Taking this all into consideration, I don't think it's becoming of you to hold a "high horse" mentality on here.